Thousands of tires dumped in Shreveport neighborhood draw concerns

Shreveport police are looking into the dumping of thousands of tires in the Westwood neighborhood. (Source: SPD)

SHREVEPORT, LA (KSLA) -

Thousands of used tires have found their way into a Shreveport neighborhood.

Now police are looking for those responsible.

Officers found thousands of tires in District 8 (Westwood) and an estimated 200 to 300 near University Health in District 10 (Ingleside), according to a Facebook post.

Nancy Mann, owner of Corie's Self Storage on Monkhouse Drive, says on occasion she has seen large trucks travel through the small road but never knew why.

"Tire trucks with the tall sides. And he just went down there. But, of course, I didn't follow him or anything – turn around. I never seen him come back out. … What kind of people are going back there, what are they doing, you know."

Police Cpl. Angie Willhite said complaints from residents brought the department's community-oriented policing bureau out to the area.

"It's like two walls of tires as you enter into this property," she said. "And it doesn't get any better the deeper you go in.

"And then you start to see the coaches, storage buildings, rubbish discarded tanks. … Anything that can be discarded here has been discarded here."

The tires do not decay.

And the sites become breeding ground for mosquitoes and home to snakes and rodents, police said.

An aggressive form of mosquito found in such areas can travel into surrounding neighborhoods, said Brian Glascock, supervisor of Caddo Parish's mosquito control office.

"What you find when you have tire piles like that, you would have a lot of Asian tiger mosquitoes, which are very aggressive biters. And they become a very bad nuisance mosquito."

In the Facebook post, police ask viewers to consider the financial impact cleaning the tires will have on the taxpayers of Shreveport.

The Police Department's Operation Restore is addressing these problems.

Problems that Mann says needs to be solved.

"It needs to be cleaned up. It needs to be addressed with the property people over there and gated off."

Authorities ask anyone who sees someone dumping tires or any other trash or debris in unauthorized places to call Shreveport-Caddo Crime Stoppers at (318) 673-7373.